Värmland crocodile
With only one hour of fishing left it looked like a normal fishing day on this huge lake. A day without the slightest sign of fish activity. At 9 pm then a pike grabbed my swimbait. The lure, a 25 cm long SG roach, was fished 2 meters under the surface over deep water. A strike like any other. It was also no problem to navigate the fish to the boat but the netting was tricky and took three attempts. After a few less successful fishing days in a row a solid esox at last. The fish had of course spawned but it had not started feeding yet as the scales should reveal later.
cold again
During the last days night temperatures dropped to subzero again and this morning the landscape was covered with snow. Due to the very high temperatures in late April the water temperature is rather stable, between 8 to 11 degrees. Small and shallow lakes in northern Värmland were even up to 14 degrees near the surface last week. The spawning is over now but in some shallow areas pike are still present. Seems like they are waiting for roach, bream and other species.
The weekend had been ok with the majority of pike caught on jig close to the bottom at 10 meters of depth. Strangely shallow trolling over deeper water did not result in a single fish. On Sunday I went for size instead of numbers and ended the day with a 90+ and yet another 100+. A really big one is still missing. But I´ll give it another 4 weeks!
